


i'm sorry (isn't enough)

by it_always_flinches_first



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Presumed Dead, tony's obviously not dead but like this is pretty heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 08:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20720834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/it_always_flinches_first/pseuds/it_always_flinches_first
Summary: It's been a normal day for Peter, if you exclude the awful headache he's had all morning, so when he heads to his last class of the day, Peter thinks he's going to be able to just get through it and go home to sleep it off.He should've known things don't ever go the way he wants them to.





	i'm sorry (isn't enough)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anthonydarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthonydarling/gifts).

> yo what's up my dudes yeah yeah i know i have like 3 wips to update i'm aware i'm an awful human being thanks. that said! this was inspired by a Tumblr post but i have no clue how to do links so credit for this idea to @anthonydarling on tumblr aka the person i gifted this to ok now listen. uhhh i wrote this at 1 am while eating some coffee and watching into the spiderverse for the seventh time, so don't judge me too much i know i'm trash and so is this but hey i think it's not as bad as it could've been if i do say so myself

Peter is battling a deadly enemy. This is the biggest fight he's ever been in, he might not make it out.

His enemy advances towards him, all blood thirst and savageness. It seems so long ago he was merely sitting in an ordinary classroom, unaware of the danger he was in, but his enemy is vicious. It plays mind games with him, tries to break him in any way it can. Peter's not sure he can hold it off for much longer, but he's not ready to die yet. No, this will not be where Peter Parker meets his ending, he _ refuses _ to give up. He raises his weapon, ready to slay the roaring beast and –

"Alright, time's up guys, turn in your papers."

Peter's hand freezes before he can finish writing down an answer on the paper in front of him. His attention drifts from the Chemistry test on his desk to Mr. Donovan, who's sitting at his own desk, eyebrows raised expectantly.

Peter sighs. His eyes fall back to the paper, and he realizes he only filled out two of the fifteen questions.

Honestly, he doesn't know what he expected. As he stands up and turns in the god forsaken piece of paper, Peter figures that this is just the final act in the play of tragedy that has been today. It's actually a wonder he managed two whole questions, because his head is currently pounding with what may be the worst headache ever recorded in human history –

Well, maybe not that bad, perhaps he's exaggerating just a tiny bit, so what? It's been a long day, sue him.

He meets Ned at their lockers, insanely grateful that they're now heading to the last period of the day. As Peter joins him, Ned rambles a mile a minute, about Chemistry class (where he's going now) and how Mr. Donovan always has the hardest tests and _ speaking about tests how'd yours go? Peter? Peter! _

Peter startles as Ned's hand lands on his shoulder, shaking him.

"I'm – what did you say? I'm so sorry – actually I – forget it I know exactly what you said, it was, uh… Mr. Ramírez?" He stutters out.

Ned gives him a strange look, one Peter can't quite decipher.

"Mr. _ Donovan _," he corrects, and Peter nods, like he knew that, "Mr. Ramírez is Spanish, remember?"

Ned shakes his head, still staring at him, and Peter can't help but feel scrutinized. Ned's always been able to see right through him, after all.

"What's going on with you, man? You've been spacey all day."

"It's just a bad headache," Peter says sincerely, sighing, "I'll be fine by tomorrow." He gives his friend a small smile, which Ned returns.

Spanish is up next for Peter, and seeing that they've arrived at the right classroom, he makes a break for it, waving a lazy goodbye to Ned, who, seeing he's about to be late for Chemistry, takes off running in that classroom's direction.

By the time Peter's settled in his desk, he's sure his head is just trying to murder him.

He rubs his temples, trying his hardest to understand the difference between _ 'ser' _ and _ 'estar' _, but honestly, focusing is pretty hard when your head feels like someone's driving a sword through your skull. On second thought, this is starting to feel less like a headache and more like… premonition.

He can't explain it, but he can just _ feel _ something is about to go wrong. It isn't the usual warning of his spider sense, he knows, because those are precise and tell him when, where, and how he needs to move. This is just a vague feeling, some kind of prediction hanging somewhere he can't quite reach, taunting him as he tries and fails to grasp onto it.

He reaches for it once again, but he doesn't get very far, because suddenly Ava is standing up from her seat next to him and pointing at the window, her eyes wide with glee and surprise.

Mr. Ramírez tells her to sit back down, but she pays him no mind

"That's Iron Man!" She exclaims, and _ that _does get everyone's attention.

Kids are standing up all at the same time, tripping over each other in their haste to get to the window.

Peter's headache doesn't agree with the amount of noise they're making, and his own curiosity isn't helping either.

_ Why would Tony be here? _

There's a swarm of kids gathered at the window now, and Mr. Ramírez has left the classroom, presumably to find out what's going on.

Peter decides to stand up too, if only because he hates not knowing what's happening and the possibility that Tony might be here makes his headache seem a little less important. After pushing a couple of kids to get to where he can see outside, understanding dawns on Peter, as he sees the reason why Tony is here:

At _ least _ three of the buildings next to the school's block are completely _ demolished _, and the cause are what look like the same robots from Aldrich Killian's little murder experiment at the Stark Expo so many years ago. Peter sees Natasha, Clint, Sam, and Steve also there. He sucks in a gasp as he sees Tony flying in his Iron Man suit, and he's fighting the robots, but he's… only using one hand. In fact, he's got what just looks like a black box, roughly the size of his fist in the other one. 

When he spots Peter, Tony takes a step away from the fight, and approaches the window the students are all watching him through.

_ 'Get back' _, he mouths when the suit's faceplate goes up, and the kids do.

Next thing Peter knows, the window's breaking, and Tony's handing him the small box.

"Hey kiddo!" He says, awfully cheerful for the situation he's in, "thought I would just swing by."

"Nice timing, sure the killer robots were convenient, huh?" Peter answers, raising an eyebrow.

"Ha, ha." Tony says drily, but then his face softens into something else, something Peter can't quite grasp. "That's FRIDAY in that box, by the way – listen, I'd been trying this new gadget – well, doesn't matter, I'll tell you later."

"Is it connected to the suit?" Peter asks, eyeing the box with curiosity.

"Yup!" Says Tony. "Mind holding onto her for a second? I'm in a bit of a situation."

Peter chuckles lightly as he takes the box Tony's offering him.

"You go do your thing, Mr. Stark, I'm sure FRIDAY will survive a couple of minutes without her lovely creator, won't you FRI?"

_ "Indeed I will, Peter." _The AI responds, and Peter laughs again at Tony's offended expression.

"I would get back at you for that sass –" he says to Peter, as a small explosion sounds behind him "– but I'm afraid I've got more pressing matters to attend to – no offense."

With that, the faceplate goes down again, and Tony turns from them to join the battle again.

"Stay safe, Pete." He throws over his shoulder, and then the Iron Man suit is lifting off the ground and approaching the killer robots.

They have a fight, but really, it's nothing special, nothing new. The rest of the team do their own things while Tony fights his own small army of murder bots. He seems to get the upper hand, and, sure enough, a second later he's punching the last one of the robots, and it falls unmoving to the ground.

Tony rises to his full height then, seemingly unscathed from the fight he just had – until a robot gets back up, and slams into Tony, bringing him down with it.

Iron Man falls, and then he's nothing, indistinguishable from the rubble around him.

Natasha yells his name, and runs towards him, but then –

Then the rubble explodes.

_ "Tony!" _ Peter shouts, fully aware and somehow not of the fact that there's no way Tony is hearing him. "FRIDAY run scans! Give me vitals!"

For a moment, the AI is silent, processing the command.

Then,

_ "I'm sorry Peter…" _ FRIDAY says, sounding almost regretful, _ "I'm not detecting any vitals from the suit." _

And just like that, the world around him collapses.

Tony's dead.

Peter feels everything and nothing at the same time.

"That can't be – there's no way he's – FRIDAY run scans again!"

_ "Scanning." _ Says FRIDAY, her voice even.

Peter just stands there, not able to do anything but wait anxiously for FRIDAY's results. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Tom whispering something into Betty's ear, and she nods and says something else, eyes locked on Peter. He's certain he should be able to hear her, with his enhanced hearing and whatnot, but he's way too preoccupied with the ringing in his ears that seems to have taken over his entire existence.

_ "I can't find any sign of life." _Says FRIDAY.

_ You're an orphan twice over now, _ his mind whispers, and with that, Peter falls and he _ shatters. _

The scream ripped from his throat is a guttural one, the sound of a boy who has lost too much, one who has the world on his shoulders but whose legs are too weak to carry the weight of his sins and everyone else's. Peter runs his hands through his hair, and he's sure he rips some of it out but no one says anything. What _ would _ they say? What do you tell the kid who's lost everything a million and a half times?

The clock on the wall ticks and it mocks him, reminds him that he should be on his way to the Tower, because it's Monday, and he was supposed to be in the lab, working with Tony.

There's not much work a dead man can help you with, is there?

Peter supposes, detachedly hysterical, that in a way, he was expecting this. He'd been expecting it since the day he met Tony, has been waiting for the other shoe to drop – and drop it _ did. _

He's numb in a way that shoots icy tendrils of fear through his veins, something that makes no sense, but then again, when does anything in his life ever do? When is there an explanation for the piercing shot that makes his eyes and his heart weep, or the blood seeping through his fingers, blood of a man he should've saved but didn't? When does a hurricane defend its trajectory, or perhaps an earthquake rest its case on where it happens?

When, ever, does tragedy ask for permission?

The world around Peter seems to mourn, the flowers weep and the air stiffens. Without his permission, the tears come, and suddenly all he can think of now is that he's breaking down in front of his classmates, and how this is going to be the talk of the whole damn school and _ he didn't ask for this he didn't _.

In the back of his mind, he wonders what he's going to wear to the funeral.

The air is being sucked out of him as if someone were stealing it all with a straw. He tries to gasp in a breath, but – doesn't it feel unfair for him to when Tony _ doesn't _ ? Won't _ ever _ again?

_ Make it go away go away please please he can't be dead he can't he can't – _

Peter isn't religious – that part of him went down the drain along with Ben's warm blood he could never properly wash off – but here and now he finds himself praying, _ begging _.

They say desperate people find faith, don't they? Peter is more than willing to find anything if it means Tony gets to come back.

_ Then again, when has anything ever gone right for you? _

The sudden yell of a kid next to him he can't be bothered with recognizing brings Peter out of his stupor.

"Look over there! He's getting up! He's – that's the suit, look!" The kid shouts.

Peter scolds the tiny bit of hope that settles in his chest at the comment, but he looks up nonetheless and he finds –

_ Tony. _

It seems like a mirage at first and Peter knows that his mind likes to torture him so he's reluctant to believe it but Tony's _ there _.

He's walking, albeit with Steve supporting him but Tony's _ walking _ and he's _ alive _ and Peter doesn't think he's ever seen a more beautiful thing in his life. He jumps out the broken window, and his hand gets caught on an edge, so there's some glass in his palm but Peter couldn't care less, because compared to the complete _ agony _ in his chest that was thinking Tony was dead, some glass in his hand is nothing.

He collides with Tony just a few feet away from the window, as the man steps out of the suit. Tony hugs him back, and as Peter can't help but notice the way Tony's heart skips a beat every couple of seconds, the realization hits him that he's _ scared _.

Peter can't blame him, really, and with that thought come the tears.

He buries his head into Tony's chest, as the man in turn rests his chin on the top of his head, and Peter _ cries _.

He cries like he hasn't cried since Ben died because Tony is the closest thing he has to a father right now and Peter can't _ bear _ to lose that – he _ can't _ , but he _ didn't _.

He _ didn't _. He repeats that like a mantra in his mind –

_ You didn't lose him you didn't he's right here he's not going anywhere _

They're going to be ok.

As Peter's sobs die down, Tony just holds him, almost as if he were reassuring himself more than the kid.

"I'm sorry." Peter whispers, arms still around Tony, because it feels like the right thing to do.

(May always says he apologizes too much. Perhaps he does.)

"Oh, kid, no," Tony mutters, "you don't have to apologize, you _ don't _."

That makes makes him start crying all over again for some reason, and he scolds his dumb fucking brain for being so sensitive.

Tony's _ fine _. He's right here.

_ So why does it feel like he's going to disappear any second now? _

"Hey, hey," Tony says, his voice softer than Peter's used to hearing it be and _ god _ he _ hates _ it. "Tell me what's wrong, buddy, what's going on?"

"I… I thought you were… I saw you fall to your _ death _." Peter gasps out.

"I'm not." Tony reassures, "I'm not, I swear. I'm staying right here, buddy."

All Peter can do is nod against his chest. Tony presses a kiss to his forehead.

"Sorry for scaring you." He says quietly.

"It's ok." Says Peter, even though it isn't – it _ isn't _.

"It's not." Tony states, "it's really not, I'm sorry that happened."

"I… I forgive you. I do." Peter says, "I'm just glad that you're ok."

Tony gives him a smile, even though Peter can't see it, and he mouths a _ 'we're going home' _to Natasha over the top of the kid's head.

She nods, smiling softly at him, and leaves to go help Steve with the cleanup.

Tony turns his attention back to Peter.

"Hey kid, wanna go home?" He whispers, "May said she has homemade pizza. She probably burnt it but you know – the things one does for love."

Peter laughs a bittersweet laugh. Somehow, burnt pizza in his cramped apartment with his aunt and Tony Stark seems like the best thing in the world.

"Lead the way."

**Author's Note:**

> yay he lives!! can u tell i have no idea how american schools work aakjshsgkshsgs  
hmu on tumblr @mysterio-is-a-little-bitch !! scream at me! scream WITH me!!! come talk to me seriously ily guys💙


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